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Louisville football shut out in second half, drop fourth straight

By Jacob Lane

CHESTNUT HILL, MA - OCTOBER 13: Quarterback Jawon Pass #4 of the Louisville Cardinals looks to pass during the first quarter of the game against the Boston College Eagles at Alumni Stadium on October 13, 2018 in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. (Photo by Omar Rawlings/Getty Images)
CHESTNUT HILL, MA - OCTOBER 13: Quarterback Jawon Pass #4 of the Louisville Cardinals looks to pass during the first quarter of the game against the Boston College Eagles at Alumni Stadium on October 13, 2018 in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. (Photo by Omar Rawlings/Getty Images) /
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Louisville football showed once again that they are just not a good football team, falling to an AJ Dillon-less Boston College team, moving to 2-5 (0-4) on the season.

Things did not get off to a promising start for the Louisville football program. After winning the coin toss and getting the ball first, Bobby Petrino called three straight pass plays which ended with a tipped pass at the line, a dropped ball by Trey Smith, and a sack. It took Boston College just five plays to go up 7-0 on the offensive end.

After a second straight three and out for the Cards, Boston College needed just four plays to score once again, this time on a two yard run from backup running back, Ben Glines, the replacement for the injured AJ Dillon.

With a 14-0 lead it looked like the Cards were headed down the exact same path they took last week in the 66-31 blowout loss to Georgia Tech. The defense was struggling to stop anything and the offense had gained just two yards. But on the next Louisville drive, the Cards showed signs of life, even though they punted after eight plays. On the first play of Boston College’s third drive, Glines put the ball on the ground and the Cards recovered what would be the first of two straight forced fumbles.

On the next two offensive series, Louisville’s drives ended in rushing touchdowns, bringing the score to 14-13. The first touchdown came on a controversial 4th down run by Malik Cunningham, that went to an official review after initially being called a turnover on downs. While Hassan Hall scored the second touchdown on a three yard run.

Even with some offensive success, the Louisville offensive line played possibly their worst half of football (they’d out do themselves in the second half). With Nathan Scheler being moved to the bench, replaced by Cole Bentley, the interior line and veteran offensive tackle, Lukayus McNeil, allowed constant pressure over and over again. Pass still stood tall and made some big passes, but as the game went on Boston College forced multiple TFL’s and sacks in the backfield.

After a touchdown run from Puma Pass in the second quarter, the Cards took the lead 20-14, putting the finishing touches on a 20-0 run. During that run Louisville looked like a completely different team than what we have seen all season. The offense was making big plays through the air, and even establishing a run game with freshman running back Hassan Hall. On defense, the defensive line was getting good pressure up the middle, and the linebackers were making aggressive plays at the line of scrimmage. And most importantly the group was alive and active on the sideline, something we haven’t seen since week three.

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Then things began to fell apart for the Cards… again.

When Boston College began giving the ball to reserve running back, David Bailey, things changed. Bailey’s burst of speed and power quickly began to wear the Louisville defense way down. Coming into this game, Bailey had just 16 carries for 104 yards and touchdown. Against Louisville he finished with 28 carries for 112 yards, good enough to be a career day – a phrase we’become all too familar with over the last few years.

In the third quarter the offense for Louisville began regressing majorly, mostly due to the struggles of the offensive line. Pass was sacked 5 times and the line allowed 12 tackles for loss.

Late in the fourth quarter being down 31-20 with just six minutes to go and the game by no means out of reach, Bobby Petrino made one of his most controversial calls of the season (a head scratching one at that) pulling Puma Pass for the third time this season, this time in favor of freshman Jordan Travis.

At the end of the Georgia Tech game Jordan Travis showed that he could make big plays, both on the ground and through the air, but to put him in at that time was just flat out strange. Pass had struggled in the second half and had a lot of throws that were behind receivers but most of that was due to the struggles of the offensive line.

On his first drive Travis threw the ball three straight times all for incompletions which led to a Louisville punt and gave BC the chance to run the ball and put the game away for good. That’s exactly what they did, scoring another rushing touchdown – this time it was Jeff Smith – and the Golden Eagles extended the score to 38-20.

There’s no way to sugar coat this, things are at an even lower point than they were last year and maybe ever were during the Steve Kragthorpe error. After playing a solid half of football, the Cards absolutely folded in the second half. No adjustments were made, at least good ones, and the same things that haven’t worked all season continued to not work for Louisville. UofL scored zero points in the second half and looked like a team that wanted to quit.

Bobby Petrino is a good football coach but it seems that things are quickly getting out of hand. With Louisville heading into a bye week some serious changes must be made. I think we can all agree that is highly unlikely that teams wins another game, especially with Syracuse, North Carolina State, Clemson, and Kentucky all remain on the schedule.

The Cards now sit at 2-5, and 0-4 in the ACC (good enough to be last place) and have lost four straight games. I don’t know where they go from here at QB, on the offensive line, or defensively. I’m out of answers, and am tired of asking the same damn questions each week.

LVP: I could go in a lot of different directions here but I’m solely placing the blame on Head Coach Bobby Petrino. Last week he said in his post game press conference that things in practice weren’t making it to the games, that players weren’t practicing well, and much more. Once again it showed this week that he has lost his players. Not only that but he continued to make terrible decisions time and time again. His defensive coordinator isn’t able to coach the players to stop anyone, again his fault, and the offensive line that was supposed to be “great” is possibly the worst in his second stint with Louisville. It’s time to move on…. Now

MVP: Nah, I’m not playing this game. We suck and nobody really stood out.

However, this happened. So I guess there’s your answer.

Stat of the day: For the second straight week, Louisville gave up 100+ yards to two different running backs. That is not a recipe for winning football games in case you were curious. The Cards have now given up 1557 rushing yards on the season.

Tweet of the day: They have 4 Chad’s on their team.

Tweet of the day #2: Accurate.

Louisville will head into a bye week next week, which is good because it means they can’t lose another game. There will be a lot of questions raised from the fan base on whether it could be a good time to make a change at head coach.

Next. For Louisville Football the time has come to move on from Bobby Petrino. dark

Not sure if that happens, likely not, but when the Cards return home to play against Wake Forest on 27th it could be an all time low in attendance in the Bobby Petrino 2.0 era.

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